


Fantasy Preserved in Clay

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternative Sexuality, Angst, Banter, F/F, Fantasizing, Kissing, Open Relationships, Secret Relationship, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 01:19:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maggie struggles to return to her respectable life after the events of The Last Dam Job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fantasy Preserved in Clay

Maggie had been home from the east coast for three days when her assistant finally called. “Jason wanted to know when you could meet with him about the pre-Raphaelite collection.”

 _Oils…statues…delicate miniatures…_ Maggie sighed quietly, running a hand through her tangled hair. _Hor d’oeuvres and finger food, lighting schemes and marketing materials…_ “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I said I was still out of town?”

The silence on the other end of the line was all the answer she needed. She’d avoided giving anyone at the museum anything approaching a firm date as to when she’d be back from Maryland – mostly because Sophie hadn’t been able to give her a clear idea how long she’d be needed, but partly because she wasn’t sure when, or if, she’d be in the right frame of mind to go back.

“Please tell Jason I’ll call him in the morning to set something up,” she said at last, knowing the young woman on the other end of the line would wait all night for an answer if she needed to.

“So you will be in tomorrow?” she asked, the hopeful note in her voice confirming Maggie’s suspicions. There was a reason she paid Heather Atkins twice what the girl would have gotten working at any other museum in the city.

“Good night, Heather,” Maggie said firmly, hanging up her phone.

 _Maggie’s becoming quite the grifter._ Sophie’s voice in her head again – even though the words were a memory, it felt like they were mocking her this time, and her choices.

_Besides…we’re friends._

Maggie snorted softly. _Well that wasn’t entirely true now, was it Sophie?_ But that was something she wasn’t prepared to share with anyone yet, and given Sophie’s behavior when they were on the job and around the others, she was pretty sure the dark-haired woman agreed. Still, the kiss she’d greeted Maggie with at the airport had definitely lingered longer than mere friendship – the look in her dark eyes showing clear regret for all the things they wouldn’t have time to do this trip.

Barefoot, clad in a camisole tank top and her favorite pair of paint splattered jeans, Maggie went back into her studio. It had been the first renovation she’d made to the little bungalow style house, after moving in two years earlier. _Right after that fiasco in Kiev._ Smiling, she took a sip of her leftover morning coffee, and cast a critical eye on the sculpture she’d been working on. The job had been sheer insanity, culminating in her and Nate nearly getting blown up in an elevator, while her erstwhile boyfriend had cowered in the corner.

Maggie had loved it. Matthew, not so much – the two of them had parted company within the day of Nate and his little family solving the mystery and clearing her of all pending charges.

Even so, Maggie had tried hard after Kiev to return to something resembling her responsible, acceptable lifestyle. She’d taken a job as administrator at a small, but prestigious gallery in Los Angeles, had bought herself a house in the area, and was working hard on settling into the closest she’d had to her life before Sam’s death.

Routine had almost managed to tamp down her wandering spirit again, when there’d been a knock on her door. “Heard you ran into some trouble overseas.”

Maggie’s heart had literally stopped, seeing Sophie Devereaux on her doorstep. It had taken her a truly embarrassingly long time to stop behaving like a teenager faced with her first serious crush and even invite the woman inside. Conversational catch-up over tea had turned into dinner (ordered in, of course), and late night laughter over glasses of wine. They bared their souls to each other, sharing secrets and lies until well after midnight when Sophie leaned forward on the couch and kissed her.

Sophie was arguably the finest grifter in the world, amassing herself a fortune largely off her ability to read people’s body language. Maggie had known long before Sophie’s tongue delicately traced the swell of her lower lip that she’d given away too much truth in those first startled moments, but by the time Sophie stopped long enough to ask her, “is this okay?”, the only words Maggie could remember how to say were “oh” and “yes”.

One night’s visit had turned into three days – Maggie had called in sick, and the two of them had barely left the bedroom in that time.

 _”Besides…we’re friends.”_ Maggie dampened her work area, and went back to smoothing out the rough patch of clay she’d found at the point of the statue’s shoulder. It was very nearly complete; the nude figure was just shy of eighteen inches long, finished with some of the most intricate work Maggie had ever done in the medium.

Stepping back, she studied the figure with a critical eye. To anyone that knew her, the reclining woman was obviously intended to be Sophie Devereaux. Maggie couldn’t help the wicked smile that curved her lips when she imagined what a few of the people they had in common would have had to say about her eye for detail. After several delicious moments’ fantasy, she picked up one of her etching tools and added a curling lock of hair falling artfully over the statue’s bare shoulder.

 _”Have you ever thought about running away?”_ Closing her eyes, Maggie could remember the moment in heart-stopping detail. Sophie had backed her into a wall, pressing full length against her as the hustle and noise of the Baltimore airport swirled around them. Maggie’s answering laugh had been almost a sob, but Sophie had done something to the place just under her ear at that point that made thinking straight impossible.

“I’m serious,” the other woman had continued in a whisper, her breath hot against Maggie’s skin. “You were made for a much grander life than this, Maggie. Come with us – we can make it work, I know we can.”

“I can’t.” The words had escaped her, in spite of every fiber of her soul crying out to accept Sophie’s offer. _Take a risk for once in your miserable grown-up life._

“I see how you change, when you’re on the grift, Maggie.” They’d pulled apart by then, but while Maggie mourned the loss of physical contact there was a truth in Sophie’s eyes it was impossible to ignore. “Your whole being comes alive. You love what we’re doing, and you’d be great at it.”

“My job…” she’d tried to argue, but Sophie had cut her off with the stirrings of genuine frustration.

“Hang your job,” she snapped, and Maggie’s eyes had widened in amazement at the other woman’s anger. “Hang your job, and hang your socially acceptable ideas of right and wrong – your _job_ is what’s killing you, keeping you from the person you truly want to be.”

It was a truth no one had ever dared say to her, her most closely guarded secret pulled out and flung back in her face – and for a moment Maggie wanted nothing more than to admit Sophie was right. Hang the job, hang her bills, her life in Los Angeles. Didn’t she deserve after all this time to take the life she’d always wanted for herself?

The freedom to explore her feelings for Sophie all on its own was enough temptation to convince her to say yes, but Maggie had spent too many of her formative years being lectured on the evils of giving in to temptation. When what you wanted was at odds with what you needed, the responsible person chose need every time. And she had everything she needed…in Los Angeles.

“Somebody has to be the responsible one,” she’d said at last, breaking down crying in Sophie’s arms. It was all she’d been able to manage in the way of refusal.

She was grateful Sophie had refused to take it as a final good-bye.


End file.
